GREECE 400ATHENS: Stuck in a small Athens flat all day to avoid being caught by police, earning another stint in prison and possibly a beating, 29-year-old Cameroonian Eugene Manaa rues the day he came to Greece.

 

"Life is not just difficult here. It's impossible," says Manaa, who recently spent two months in prison on the island of Crete for illegal entry into Greece.

 

"There's no work, no money, no housing," he tells AFP. "There are fifteen of us sharing a flat, we face police checks at every corner, we are subjected to racism and we cannot go to another country."

 

Like many of his compatriots, Manaa is among tens of thousands of undocumented migrants caught in a vicious trap.

 

Lured to the European Union from war-torn homes in search of safety and a better future, they find themselves in Greece at the worst possible moment in the country's postwar history.

 

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2012

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2012

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